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would not be long before he came to see if his mama was in need of her shawl.”
    She glanced in a most pointed manner at Lady Edgcumbe who, immediately recognizing her cue, put a hand to her brow and sighed gently. “The air is so close in here. My dear Sally, I do feel the most vile headache coming on. If you all will forgive me, I believe I shall seek some fresh air.” Smiling apologetically at Althea and her grandmother, she rose and hurried from the card room.
    “Poor Lavinia. She is a perfect martyr to her dreadful headaches,” the marchioness chirped brightly. “But no matter. Gareth can take her place. Can you not, my dear? Gareth is a superb player. It is said that he has won a fortune at cards, though his poor mama has yet to see any evidence of it.” The acid tone of her voice was oddly at variance with the marchioness’s fond greeting.
    Althea, her gaze riveted to her cards, could not help darting a curious glance at the marchioness and her son. The bitter twist of the marchioness’s rouged lips quickly smoothed into a doting smile as she presented her handsome son to her opponents, but not before Althea had seen her bitter look and wondered at it, as well as the angry tightening of the son’s lips, an expression that was also quickly banished as he acknowledged the Dowager Duchess of Clarendon and her granddaughter.
    In fact, Gareth was doing his best to hide the fury that had risen within him the moment he had discovered the identity of his mother’s companions. The witch! As usual, she was bound and determined to have her own way. Not content with pointing out to him the most eligible young woman of the Season, she was forcing him into an introduction, and there was nothing, short of being brutally and inexcusably rude, that he could do to avoid it.
    Gareth took his place in the fragile-looking gilt chair vacated by Lady Edgcumbe. Of course he could be brutally and inexcusably rude—he had been so before, and no doubt he would be again— but for some inexplicable reason, he did not wish to be so now. Picking up the cards Lady Edgcumbe had laid down he made a pretense of looking at them, but in truth he was examining the face opposite him. She was even more lovely up close than she was at a distance, and she refused to look at him.
    Lady Althea sat proudly erect, her eyes riveted on her own hand, the beautifully sculpted face devoid of expression, any expression at all.
    “We must deal over again.” Althea’s grandmother looking at him. “We certainly cannot expect Harwood to pick up in the middle of someone else’s game.”
    “Thank you for your concern, but it is no matter.” Gareth waved her objection aside. “I still hope to offer you a creditable challenge.”
    That got Althea’s attention. The dark blue eyes fixed him with a measuring stare that quite took his breath away. They were her finest feature in a face full of fine features. As dark as the most priceless of sapphires and fringed with thick dark lashes that contrasted with the pale smoothness of a flawless complexion, they were deep enough for a man to drown in. But it was the expression in them that took him by surprise. There was not an ounce of coquetry, nor the slightest flicker of flirtation. And it dawned on him that Lady Althea Beauchamp was not the least bit interested in the Marquess of Harwood as a man. If she were interested in him at all, it was only as an opponent.
    A rueful smile tugged at the corners of Gareth’s mouth. Much as he hated to admit it, it was a rather lowering experience to be regarded in that light. He had become so accustomed to evading every feminine ploy, dampening matrimonial hopes in so many score of female breasts that, until this moment, he had begun to assume that he was irresistible to the entire sex.
    Giving himself a mental shake, he stifled a grin and glanced back at his cards. If Lady Althea preferred a good opponent to a good catch, or even a good man, then, by God, she would not be